Norman Rockwell, (1894 -1978), was an American painter and illustrator best known for his covers for the journal The Saturday Evening Post.
In 1916 he sold his first cover to The Saturday Evening Post, for which in the next 47 years he illustrated a total of 322 magazine covers.
He is also noted for his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), during which he produced covers for their publication Boys’ Life, calendars, and other illustrations.
Rockwell’s realistic manner accurately reflected the atmosphere of everyday life.
Some critics dismissed him for not having real artistic merit, but Rockwell’s reasons for painting what he did were grounded in the world that was around him.
“Maybe as I grew up and found the world wasn’t the perfect place I had thought it to be, I unconsciously decided that if it wasn’t an ideal world, it should be, and so painted only the ideal aspects of it,” he once said.
He shared the same hopes and dreams when he said, “I paint life as I would like it to be.”
More of Normal Rockwell‘s well-loved paintings can be found at https://www.nrm.org/